In the gradually approaching wail of the ambulance sirens, Su Kun glanced at his pig trotter-like swollen arm, his ankle as puffy as a steamed bun, and the large and small bleeding cuts all over Zhang Fuquan's face and body beside him.

He couldn't help but sigh: it's really rare to see a car crash like this, with no major injuries but looking especially battered.

If it weren't for this unusually stubborn car owner stopping him, he would have had Geng Zimo drag him away long ago to get treated at the community hospital and then go home to rest.

Just as he was watching the ambulance slowly decelerate while his mind wandered, a light voice drifted into his ears along with the slightly warm summer night breeze: "That damn fox, always loves to dump things on me, really..."

That extremely familiar tone sent a chill down Su Kun's spine in the hot wind - fuck, why is it that old lady again!

"What are you shivering for?" Geng Zimo beside him didn't understand his behavior and spoke up to ask.

But Su Kun acted as if he hadn't heard and didn't make a sound.

His full attention was focused on where the voice came from - the shadow behind a camphor tree a few steps away from the greenery.

A moment later, he saw a thin, small dark figure walk out from the shadows.

The old lady still looked the same as the previous few times Su Kun had seen her, wearing a dark brown jacket with a slightly retro style, but the fabric was quite good. She still had those wide-leg pants that covered her feet, fluttering in the evening breeze with layers of wrinkles.

Under a street lamp not far in front of the camphor tree, Su Kun saw that she seemed to be holding something in her hand. She lowered her head to look at it for a while, then raised her head and glanced over in this direction, her gaze meeting Su Kun's head-on.

The little old lady froze for a moment, then seemed to squint her eyes with an inscrutable expression.

Su Kun instinctively turned his head to avoid the old lady's gaze, coughing to cover up his embarrassment and a hint of fear. He nudged Geng Zimo with his shoulder and said in a low voice, "There's a camphor tree to my right, see it? Can you tell me what you see near there?"

Geng Zimo was completely baffled by him, but still reluctantly raised his eyes to take a look, then also lowered his voice and said, "An old lady?"

Su Kun suddenly looked at him: "You can see her?!" He once again had that expression of "Geng Zimo, if you nod, you're my dad!!!"

Geng Zimo's mouth twitched as he was stared at: "...Of course."

"Great! It's a person!" Su Kun's tense body suddenly relaxed, patting his chest to catch his breath. He laughed self-deprecatingly, "I must have been scared too much and become paranoid. But this old lady is indeed a bit too strange. The one who talked to me in the alley downstairs last time was her, and I've run into her quite a few times since then, each time not quite normal."

"I can see her alright, but—" Geng Zimo glanced over there again and said, "She doesn't seem to have a shadow."

QAQ!

Su Kun instantly stiffened, then felt the urge to roll his eyes and faint on the spot. He was about to grab Geng Zimo's neck and roar, "Fuck, I told you to breathe, I told you to breathe! I'll strangle you until you can't breathe anymore, ahhhh!"

But out of the corner of his eye, he saw a dark shadow flit past.

He only froze for less than a second before realizing that the half-curled infant ghost with especially large whites of its eyes had somehow circled back again from somewhere.

Instinctively turning his head, Su Kun glanced at Zhang Fuquan over there, who was getting up to walk towards the ambulance. Su Kun found that the infant ghost was indeed still going after him, but he was now in a semi-disabled state and couldn't continue to jump around. Even if he wanted to be a good Samaritan, he couldn't.

But the next second, he saw the person, no, the ghost who took his place as the good Samaritan.

Gu Yan, who had disappeared without a trace earlier, had somehow caught up to the infant ghost from behind. The moment the infant ghost pounced towards Zhang Fuquan, he pounced on the infant ghost first.

In an instant, the two similarly-sized ghosts were entangled in battle. Su Kun only felt that patch of shadows fluttering, unable to clearly see who was who.

Although Geng Zimo and Zhang Fuquan, who were quite close to the two ghosts, couldn't hear it, Su Kun heard it very clearly - the infant ghost's eerily childish voice suddenly rang out, highly distinguishable amidst the ambulance sirens. After wailing for a couple of times, the voice suddenly changed pitch for some reason, heading straight towards shrill, as if it was going to scream itself hoarse to death.

Just as Su Kun found it increasingly unbearable and simply wanted to cover his ears, the miserable scream abruptly stopped. As if someone had slit its throat, leaving only wheezing gasps, never to make a sound again.

Staring with wide eyes in that direction, Su Kun saw the two intertwined dark figures become clear in outline again, the difference being that the previous two figures had now become only one.

"Heh—" Su Kun heard the old lady suck in a cold breath again.

He turned his head to look at her and saw that she was also staring at where Gu Yan was, her mouth agape in surprise, as if she had seen something incredible. But she quickly noticed Su Kun's gaze, so she closed her mouth in embarrassment, glanced again at the thing clutched in her hand, turned around and tottered away with small steps, disappearing into the darkness in the distance like a wisp of smoke.

"How are the injuries?" A deep voice sounded beside him. Su Kun felt like he had become one of those one-yuan rattle drums at the market from his childhood, spinning around all night until his head was clanging, constantly losing parts.

When he turned his head and saw Gu Yan's appearance clearly, the last two parts in his head also clattered out, turning him into a complete fool: =口=

He saw Gu Yan still floating in front of him with a deadpan face, as if he wasn't the one who had just fought with that infant ghost for a while and tortured it until it screamed miserably.

"Where's that infant ghost..." Su Kun looked dazedly at the dark red blood-like stain at the corner of Gu Yan's mouth and swallowed. He said in a trembling voice, "Don't tell me you swallowed it, hehehehehe." =_='

Gu Yan stared into Su Kun's eyes and noticed that he seemed a bit disgusted by the idea of swallowing the infant spirit whole. So, with a deadpan expression, he reached out a short finger, following Su Kun's gaze, and wiped off the drop of blood from the corner of his mouth, calmly saying, "No."

Su Kun: "..." Fuck, do you think I'm stupid?!!

Gu Yan looked as if he had read his mind, and continued to look down at him calmly from above in a way that made Su Kun feel stifled, as if saying, "Indeed."

Just as he was about to explode with anger from this imaginary sentence in his mind and was about to rise up in revolt, Geng Zimo beside him suddenly poked his uninjured side and said coldly, "If you're done talking to yourself, shut up, or they'll just carry you straight to the psychiatric ward."

"Huh?" Su Kun looked over in the direction of his gaze with a slight daze, and saw the paramedics who had already negotiated with the car owner walking over with a stretcher.

He glared at Gu Yan, then resolutely shut his mouth, and didn't say another word until he was carried into the ambulance and sent to the hospital.

Gu Yan followed the ambulance all the way to the hospital, but before he could enter, he was dazzled by the incredibly bright cold white light inside, making his head spin. So he stopped on a relatively dark lawn outside the hospital and watched Su Kun and his group enter through the main door.

Hospitals, like schools, are places where ghost stories are exceptionally abundant. But if you really had to compare, hospitals would have a slight edge. After all, far more people linger here before passing than most other places.

Gu Yan guessed from the stretcher earlier what this spacious courtyard with several buildings was used for.

He thought for a moment, then took the opportunity while waiting for Su Kun to have his wounds treated to walk around these few buildings: firstly, because apart from Su Kun's home, he hadn't had a good look at other places in this world. Secondly, he sensed an unusually large number of soul fragments here. Large, small, strong, faint... as rich as a feast.

The moment he encountered the infant spirit earlier, he seemed to have instinctively understood how to deal with it in a way that would benefit him. That infant spirit, having gone through who knows what, had exceptionally heavy ominous and resentful energy, almost comparable to Gu Yan himself when he first inexplicably entered this world, carrying a heaven-rending, bone-deep hatred.

After devouring that infant spirit, its resentful and ominous energy swirled and collided within his body for a moment, like blood, flowing from the tips of his limbs to his heart - or more precisely, to where the jade was - and then, as if washed through, flowed back to all parts of his body in an exceptionally gentle way.

Gu Yan could even clearly feel that the burning sensation that had been stifled inside his body when he had previously returned to adult size was now steaming up again.

This feeling made him feel a hidden excitement from the depths of his heart.

If he could often take a turn in such a place, fully absorbing all the beneficial fragments, plus what was attached to the jade pendant on Su Kun's chest, perhaps, given a year and a half, or even just a few months, he might be able to completely return to his original size, just like tonight, possessing a sense of touch, pain, and even heartbeat-like vibrations similar to that of a normal person.

Or, if there were more things with resentful and ominous energy as abundant as the infant spirit, giving him more power... would he one day gain a complete physical body, no longer fearing sunlight, no longer needing to hide in dark corners like he did now, but living anew in this world like a normal person with life?

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Author's note: Thank you to all the supportive readers~╭(╯3╰)╮